US & Canada
Hillary Clinton to declare 2016
Democratic nomination bid
12 April 2015 US & Canada
Hillary Clinton has spent more than two
decades in the public eye - as first lady,
secretary of state and senator

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
is expected to formally declare her run for
the 2016 Democratic presidential
nomination shortly.

Mrs Clinton, who also served as a senator
for New York, ran for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 2008 but lost to
Barack Obama.

The overwhelming Democratic favourite, she
has been expected to declare her candidacy
for months.

Mrs Clinton was also first lady when her
husband Bill Clinton was president.
She is expected to declare via social media.
Mrs Clinton's presidential ambitions have
been the worst-kept secret in US politics
Analysis - Anthony Zurcher, BBC North
America reporter, Washington DC
This time around, Mrs Clinton's path to the
Democratic nomination appears much
easier. Unlike 2008 there's no inspirational,
once-in-a-generation opponent like Mr
Obama waiting in the wings.

There's not even a charismatic, battole-
tested candidate like former vice presidential
nominee John Edwards or a Hispanic
governor with foreign policy chops like Bill
Richardson in the field.

But if Mrs Clinton's nomination campaign
will be easier, actually winning the
presidency could be just as difficult - or
more so.

Unlike 2008, the Democratic nominee will be
defending eight years of her party's rule,
with all the baggage that comes with it.
Instead of facing a Republican Party on its
heels, fresh from massive losses in both
chambers of Congress, a nominated Mrs
Clinton will have to defeat a Republican
candidate with the political wind at his back.
Is this Hillary Clinton's time?
Mrs Clinton, 67, is expected to release a
video outlining her campaign themes but
will put off a large, formal speech.
She will then travel to Iowa and New
Hampshire, two early primary contests in the
2016 race.
After her failed nomination bid in 2008, Mrs
Clinton served as secretary of state in Mr
Obama's first administration (2009-2013).
Known for her punishing travel schedule -
she visited 112 countries in four years - she
led the US response to the Arab Spring and
the military intervention in Libya in 2011.
Mr Obama praised her, saying at a news
conference at the Americas summit in
Panama on Saturday that she would make
an "excellent president".
And her successor in the post, John Kerry,
called her a "good friend", telling ABC's This
Week programme she "did a terrific job of
rebuilding alliances that had been shredded
over the course of the prior years".

'Above the law'

But Republican presidential contender Rand
Paul criticised Mrs Clinton for her handling
of a September 2012 attack on a US
diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in
which the US ambassador was among those
killed.
He also said questions remained about
funds received by a charity set up by Mr and
Mrs Clinton.
"There is a history of the Clintons feeling
they are above the law," he said on CNN's
State of the Union programme.

As a senator, Mrs Clinton voted for the
invasion of Iraq in 2003 but distanced
herself from the way the war was waged,
and called for US troops to be withdrawn.
During her husband's first term as president,
she campaigned for healthcare reform but
her plan fell apart and never made it to a
vote in Congress.

She was also embroiled in the some of the
scandals which marred her husband's
presidency, becoming the only US first lady
to be called to testify before a grand jury.
Mrs Clinton stood by her husband when he
was exposed as having had an affair with a
White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.